THE FIRST HOTEL IN YELLOWSTONE

Yancy's Pleasant Valley Hotel

Been doing some research on Yellowstone National Park and have come across some interesting information about the lodging facilities in the park and how they came to be.

According to Wikipedia, one of the first lodging facilities in the Park was built by a gentleman named John Yancey. According to the information I have found, in 1882 the Park Superintendent, Patrick Conger, gave Mr. Yancey verbal permission to build a cabin in Pleasant Valley and to provide accommodations for travelers in the park. This location was chosen because of the stage route from Mammoth Hot Springs to Cook City. There were well-established mining camps in Cook City and the route through Pleasant Valley was the only way in and out of Cook City in the winter.

In April 1884 the Department of the Interior gave Yancy a lease on 10 acres in Pleasant Valley to build his hotel.  He constructed a five room hotel which he named Yancy's Pleasant Valley Hotel. Rooms were $2 a day or $10 a week with meals.

According to a report from a 1901 guest at the hotel, and I am paraphrasing the report, "the cracks in the walls were pasted up with strips of newspaper. The beds showed that they were changed at least twice, once in the spring and once in the fall of the year. The bedrooms were large enough for a single bedstead and a box on which there was a wash bowl, a pitcher and part of a crash towel."

It might have been primitive, but I'll bet you it was better than sleeping on the ground!